The 10 Most Overrated 2012 Draft Prospects: Part 1

Over the past couple of months, I wrote a series of articles focusing on some of the most underrated prospects in this year’s draft. Inspired by Linsanity, I set out to shed light on some of the guys who I felt, based on their outstanding college numbers, have what it takes to make significant contributions to NBA teams, but who for one reason or another (almost always size) have been ignored by most teams and media analysts. And while I really enjoyed arguing for guys who deserve their due, I can’t help but address the other side of the issue: every year, teams foolishly draft guys who didn’t perform well in college. These are the guys who either have “potential” (aka size), or guys who just scored a lot in college but either didn’t do it efficiently or didn’t do anything else.

While productive players in college can be hit and miss (some turn out great, some fall short), guys who were bad in college are almost always bad in the NBA (I haven’t done any definitive research on this, but I have done some, and examples of poor college players becoming good NBA players are few and far in between). In essence, I’m fairly confident that the underrated draft prospects I wrote about will be reasonably productive in the NBA, but I’m very confident most of the guys here won’t be productive. This ranking is based on two primary factors: how productive the player was in college and how high experts expect him to be drafted. I will also take age into account to some degree.

10. Terrence Jones

Terrence Jones certainly isn’t terrible. In fact, he’s right around average for his position. But I, for one, wouldn’t want to use my lottery pick to take a player whose performance in two years of college was right around average. Jones is pretty good at forcing turnovers and taking care of the basketball, and he’s great at blocking shots. However, he shoots worse than his peers across the board, and is a below average rebounder for a power forward.

9. Jeremy Lamb

Like Terrence Jones, Lamb isn’t a bad prospect. But he shouldn’t be a top 10 pick. With a PAWS40 of 7.2, Lamb is just above average in terms of Win Score. But he was part of a championship team, and he has great size for his position, including a 7-foot wingspan. He also must be the best athlete in college basketball, as ESPN’s Chad Ford cites Lamb’s athleticism in three of his eight positive bullet points. Lamb is an above average shooter, relatively good at taking care of the ball, and actually a pretty decent all around player. But, for all his size an athleticism, he wasn’t particularly good at creating possessions – he doesn’t steal the ball or grab offensive rebounds as well as his peers.

8. Quincy Miller

Class: Freshman

Position: Small Forward

Draft Position: Mid-Late First

Win Score (Adjusted for Strength of Schedule and Position): 5.1 (Bad)

Quincy Miller is the poster boy for the size-trumps-skill mentality of NBA decision makers. He gets the benefit of the doubt because he’s a freshman, but his numbers at Baylor were quite underwhelming:

Quincy Miller compared to Draft Express Top 100 Small Forwards. All stats are adjusted to per 40 minutes.

Player

DE Top 100 SF

Quincy Miller

Effective Field Goal %

0.517

0.485

True Shooting %

0.559

0.550

3 Point Shooting %

0.359

0.348

Free Throw %

0.698

0.816

Offensive Rebounds

2.27

2.39

Defensive Rebounds

6.04

5.67

Total Rebounds

8.32

8.06

Assists

2.57

2.35

Steals

1.56

1.11

Blocks

1.18

1.06

Turnovers

2.67

2.92

Personal Fouls

3.02

3.06

Points!

18.68

17.41

Win Score

6.11

4.78

Mid to late first round, in my opinion, is a little early to draft a player purely because of his size. I’d rather have a player who has proved that he can be productive.

7. Tyshawn Taylor

Tyshawn Taylor, much like Quincy Miller, exemplifies the polar opposite of the players I covered in the underrated draft prospects series. He has fantastic size and great athleticism, but his numbers are flat out underwhelming. Unlike Miller (and most overrated prospects for that matter), Taylor is a senior, and doesn’t have much room to grow. He is a relatively efficient scorer, but he’s a poor rebounder and very turnover prone.

6. Andre Drummond

Drummond is the classic big who is considered a top prospect solely because of “potential”. You know, like Kwame Brown. The thing is, everyone knows it. His draft stock has even fallen over the past few weeks because of it. But some still think he’ll go #2 and the worst case scenario has him going #6. Draft Express sums up analysts’ take on Drummond – and their overt realization that drafting him is a gamble – quite nicely:

On one hand, Drummond’s long-term potential is obvious. With his tremendous size, frame, length and mobility, his elite physical tools put him in the same class as NBA centers such as Andrew Bynum, Greg Oden, Dwight Howard and Derrick Favors. Not turning 19 until August, he was the second youngest prospect in college basketball this year after Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.

On the other hand, Drummond’s actual on-court production this season was nowhere near what you would expect from a future NBA lottery pick, at least on the offensive end.

The thing is, the guys with whom Drummond is in the same elite class, at least the ones who went to college, (ignoring the fact that neither of them have done anything in the NBA anyway) were actually quite good as college freshmen. Let’s compare:

23 Responses to "The 10 Most Overrated 2012 Draft Prospects: Part 1"

motherwell, I know you’ve made this suggestion before, and frankly, I agree with you. The only reason I’m hesitant to do it is for the sake of avoiding confusion (i.e., if i change it and people try to look back and see old numbers to compare) in a stat that is already super confusing to follow (considering that it got a dreb tweak, it is drastically different depending on whether you are comparing players to drafted players or avg college players, etc) …

I love this article. There are so many better sophomore prospects that did not declare. it’s almost like their cycling the talent so that the top 5 spots are less contentious.

I call them F.A.D. kids….(Fresh Athletic Deadbets). Cuz that’s what they are. Fads.

(for your strength of schedule assessment, did you just pump up your Average NBA player score by a point? From a 6 to a 7 ? So Terrence Ross is .5 pts Over NBA Average. I am having a hard time understanding the methodology from statsheet.com (SoS, RPI.))

@Jamesbrocato yeah, because of the dreb tweak, i think you need need to call win score something else. Like Position and Rebound Adj. WiN Score. PRAWNS? Heh.

i get the feeling that d. berri wants to call v2. of win score ws48 and use 48 as the identifier for the new one.

WoW’s gotta do a definitive statement on what to use. Like Draft Express, they still use WS40, i think unadjusted by position, no documentation if they use pace adjusted win score. (If you’re going to do pace or possession based wins score why not just go whole hog and do Wins Produces? Draft express drives me nuts sometimes)

I’m not saying there should be a pope but wagesofwins is the definitive say-that FAQ needs to be consolidated a bit.

(Shotrt Answer: Please combine your FAQ and wik and update them to reflect the current state of WS40 and WP48.)

@motherwell have you ever heard of Points Over Par? that’s the wins produced version of what you’re attempting to suggest. I like Points over Par but I think it covers up the AVERAGE. Since Par changes all the time from year to year, I am starting to think it shouldn’t be used.

If it’s less easy to digest so be it. it’s not like we’re trying to be PER.

A question. The general assumption for drafting all of these players high seems to be potential based on size or athleticism. We know players tend to improve for the first few years of their career. If “potential theory” is true, then players who are over-sized for their position (I’m not sure how we’d measure athleticism) ought to improve more than their counter-parts given similar rookie win-share.

My question is: is it true, and to what degree? And how long does it take to show if it is? (Could teams theoretically trade for 3rd year lottery busts who are only just realising that potential?)

@Russ I did a criteria comparison. Think of it as using all these lauded picks and trying to recreate the decision matrix for them. I told my spreadsheets to give me either freshman or sophmores that performed at least average NCAA level according to Reb Adj. WS. The list is eerily similar to the ‘consensus’ mock drafts.

I’m pretty sure if i put in their combine measurements I’d get even closer to how bad GMs think. Heck, Barnes might even appear on my list. Or Fab Melo.

@bbalpants what is a PAWS of 11 – good, bad, above average, what?? Does anyone remember? I don’t, and I read every blog post.

But -2 is obviously not good, and a simple avergae – heck it can be 10 – is memorable. With zero as average, you say it a few times, eventually ayt least I would remember. But what is average now – I truly don’t even know!

Ultimately this is 100% arbitrary – it isn’t attempting to equate exactly numbers to wins or salary, it is an attempt to find undervalued prospects / evaluate prospects. Why not use a nice, easy, simple scale rather than 8.48753 as average and make me remember? Heck, I’d even take standard deviations from the mean – something intrinsically meaningful!

@motherwell, i don’t like unreproducibility. we’re never going to overtake PER in likability. Don’t really think we should try. i think we should include the AVERAGE right next to the WS40 stat.

’99-’11 Average WS Overall (AWSO) NCAA
’99-’11 Average WS Overall (AWSO) NBA
Have a clear cut average printed out before we do Points Over Par. (PoP.WS40)

in the future I tend to get rid of ws40 and go directly to wp48. It’s easier to compare with current NBA stars.

I hate it when people print out data i don’t see the methodology for, unless it’s wages of wins. You have to earn your bones before I respect that your methodology is sound. Although i’ve probably made a dozen mistakes in methodology myself. Setting controls is hard work. lol.

I made sure to check T. Jones’s and Lamb’s Win Scores for their freshman seasons, they were almost identical to the Win Scores for their sophomore seasons.

Russ,

There is no evidence that athletic guys improve more than non-athletic guys early in their careers. The bottom line is that production in college is the best indicator of production in the NBA (not perfect, but the best).

James: No, Jones was a power forward last year. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist was the small forward.

One could argue that Jones’ relatively low rebound rate was a product of diminishing returns, as both Kidd-Gilchrist and Anthony Davis were great rebounders last year, leaving fewer rebounds for Jones. I’m not sure that was the case as I haven’t studied the numbers, but that is the most charitable plausible explanation for Jones not rebounding very well. In any event, I’d be more worried about his inability to make shots.

For the record, I’m a Kentucky fan who grew up in Lexington with season tickets to see the Cats in Rupp. I’m in Chicago now, but still caught almost all of the games on TV. I think Jones could pan out in the NBA, but I wouldn’t bet on it. He reminded me way too much of Antoine Walker, though less disinterested in defense.

[…] he wasn’t very productive after either. So why was he drafted so high? Well, the same reason Andre Drummond and Harrison Barnes will be drafted top 5: size and potential and because he looked the part of a […]